Saturday, May 17, 2014

Sorry!

WordPress isn't working well w/us.

WE ARE MOVING!

We're moving to bowlingballcomix.wordpress.com. Give us a second to finish the design, and you can visit it.

BRIAN

Friday, April 4, 2014

Our New Edition Comes Out Monday

Well, our latest issue comes out Monday, and I like it. I'll be covering it soon!

BRIAN

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Coming Soon

Next up in the archives of Bowling Ball goodness is a very special edition. Bowling Ball also gets a side-kick!

BUY IT SOON!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Bowling Ball - 5th Issue

Hi! Brian here. Today, I'll be overviewing the 5th Issue of The Marvelous Adventures of Bowling Ball. Just a reminder, that is published by B and B Productions with Brendan's ChuckleStudio6.

STORIES

The Superior Hero

The Phantom of Snig Part II


THE SUPERIOR HERO: A story that had to be written at some point. The Superior Hero tells of Bowling Ball meeting a monstrous new "hero," who, rather aptly, is named the Nameless. The Nameless is very ugly, and his face seems taught. He tells Bowling Ball that he has replaced him, and the latter flies to a mansion to see if this is true. There is the entire population of Snig, along with a famous singer called Vanilla Ice (in the literal sense). Bowling Ball realizes they are all hypnotized - and Shatter is seen. Shatter explains how the Nameless came up to him and asked to be a hero. Shatter had only one request - that the Nameless assassinate Bowling Ball. As the Nameless was a radio announcer, Shatter's hypnotic spell was broadcasted all over Snig. But the always sadistic Shatter sent his demonic cat, Cellar, to rip out the Nameless' face. Thus the ugly face Bowling Ball has seen is merely the ripped off piece of flesh. The Nameless comes in with a gun and shoots at Bowling Ball, who reverts to his original form and knocks off the (loosely put-on) face that the Nameless wears. This exposes a skull covered with raw nerves, and our hero punches it repeatedly. As nerves cause the body to feel pain, the Nameless screams in intolerable agony and flees outside...only to trip over Bowling Ball's shopping bag, which he left there at the beginning of the tale. Bowling Ball whispers to a singing Vanilla Ice that what has happened is not over.
THE PHANTOM OF SNIG PART II: Part II of my serial based on The Phantom of the Opera. Christine Daae returns to the Opera de Snig, only to be yelled at by the Manager. After a heated argument between Christine, the Phantom, and the Manager (who thinks that the Phantom's voice is just Christine performing ventriloquism), the Manager goes a little crazy. In her dressing room, Christine sings of Little Lotte (a nursery poem...?), when a lovestruck Bowling Ball enters. The Manager promises an angry Phantom that Christine will be onstage...

THE MAKING


The making of the 5th Issue of Bowling Ball was troubled. I shall start with the cover.

We always agreed that the cover should have something to do with The Superior Hero. We thought it was the main story in the collection, and that Phantom of Snig II was just a continuation of the serial that wasn't terribly important to the edition. The first cover showed Bowling Ball, in air, standing in front of an unmasked Nameless (with the mask/face above his head). We would then have a circle in the top-right corner that showed the Phantom mask (yes, I know it isn't the one in the Gaston Leroux novel) crying blood, against a purple background, with a reddish curtain on the left side (a small reference to the amazing and missed Maria Bjornson). Then there would be the logos and all that.
Brendan was starting to have doubts about the Nameless' torso and the cover in general. I painted over the metallic, mechanical torso of the villain with black. We both found this unappealing and started a new one.
In the new cover, it was similar, but the small Phantom illustration was cut out. The circle was still there, but it was yellow and showed the Nameless' face/mask inside. We were content with this cover for a while, but we soon found out it was too revealing, as it showed the Nameless' skull and kinda ruined the point of the face being ripped off by spoiling it. In the end, we slapped on a rather bland cover with Bowling Ball flying through a deserted Snig, saying: "Oh no! I've been replaced!" That was the final cover. Brendan thought this looked too modern, but we stuck with it.

Phantom of Snig II was cut short due to time constraints. We were originally going to include what is now in Part III, but the comic was taking too slow and we had our concerns with The Superior Hero anyway. So I quickly wrapped it up on what was the shadow of a cliffhanger, but a cliffhanger none the less. After it, I posted a picture for the upcoming concept album based on the adventures of Bowling Ball.

The Superior Hero, too, was edited heavily. In the original draft (my memory is rusty; forgive me), I think the Nameless had much more control and had a statue built of him (I was going to print out this "fallen angel" statue). I also think the story was going to be much longer.

The Superior Hero must be noted for it's gaudy, ill-favoured jokes. Bowling Ball puts on his "sassy" ("Gurrrl, wassap with yo' sass?") and later (when he flies toward the Nameless) he yells "Take this, sucka!" This contemporary humour is my own addition, and, reflecting on it, it was a poor choice. To introduce this style to the naive Bowling Ball was not intelligent. I thought it would be interesting to see the reaction.

On the brighter side, Brendan introduced a new technique to the series - something he calls "panel jumping." This has not been done before in any Bowling Ball comic. It made a nice effect. In other words, I contributed poor dialogue and Brendan contributed fantastic art. Of course, Brendan and I have no unified jobs - Brendan can draw and write, myself the same - but the premise of the story is Brendan's, along with most of the art. It was I that added the Nameless (and drew his face/mask), but the crappy dialogue also belongs to me.

In the front of the comic, a character I call the Winged Curve Snake has a blurb saying "Visit Bowling Ball at thehouseofbanb.blogspot.com OR bowlingballcomics.blogspot.com." This was, I think, a good decision.

This edition of Bowling Ball must be labeled one of the worst (or my least favorite). It is several scenes in The Superior Hero that saves this fallen glory. Perhaps if we had a longer period of time to work on it it would've been better, but we have to get to work on B and B Winter. Speaking of which, I can tell you that this next one is going to be similar to our B and B Halloween, but with a higher spirit. It, as always, features Bowling Ball, Cheeseman, and Smilio and Smilia. Bowling Ball celebrates one holiday, but we won't tell you. He does, however, sense a problem at the most wonderful time of the year...

Sincerely,

BRIAN O'CONNELL

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Welcome!

Welcome!

This is the official blog for the best-selling Rockville Centre comic series, The Marvelous Adventures of Bowling Ball (published by B and B Productions with Brendan O'Connell's ChuckleStudio6)! If you are a fan of this comic, then you are in the right place. The fifth installment in the series is coming out soon. We'll be reviewing that - and all the other comics - talking about how we created it, what we liked, what we didn't like, and, at the end, a little sneak peek at the next installment. This is every Bowling Ball fanatic's dream!

LINKS TO RELATED SITES

We have a sister comic series - also co-published by B and B Productions, but this time with Brian O'Connell's Red Death Productions. It is called Schnickle Hospital, the official blog of which you can visit here. B and B Productions - the mogul of these two businesses - has a site, which you can visit here. Likewise, Red Death Productions has a blog, which you can visit here. ChuckleStudio6 does have a blog, but it is not really ready - kind of under construction. You can visit it here, anyway, but be warned - it needs a little reworking at present.